


Under the Influence

by Drusian (NerdyBirdy1224)



Category: Dark Shadows (1966)
Genre: Gen, M/M, at least overly sentimental, but a little bit, not explicitly shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 16:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18077099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdyBirdy1224/pseuds/Drusian
Summary: "Hello? ...Yes, this is he. ...Doctor Woodard, how may I help you? ... Willie? What’s happened? ...Oh no, I see. Is he hurt? ...Oh... oh I see. But he’s going to be alright, isn’t he? ...Good, very good. How did this accident happen? ...Under the infl- but- Willie doesn’t drink, he never drinks, I see to it. ...I-I suppose I'll have to discuss that with him. But how did you know to call here? ...Me? He asked you to call- very well, I’ll be down right away."





	Under the Influence

The ringing telephone jolted Barnabas’s nose out of the book where it was buried. He glanced towards the source of the intrusion and slowly set Don Juan over the arm of the chair. The phone had never rung while Willie was out before; Willie had called him on it once from elsewhere in the house just to show him how to answer, but generally, the machine was his task, not Barnabas’s. It was, after all, Willie who had finally convinced him to purchase it.

And now, of course, it had interrupted his reading. Mildly irked, he rose, crossed to it, and uncertainly lifted the earpiece to his head. “Hello?”

“Barnabas Collins?” came a voice he somewhat recognized but couldn’t quite place.

“Yes, this is he,” replied Barnabas.

“This is Doctor Woodard down at Collinsport Memorial Hospital.”

Barnabas’s brow wrinkled with worry. The last time he’d spoken to Woodard had been during that Maggie Evans business - had they made some new connection to him, somehow? Surely not. The case was over. Still, paranoia began to creep up on him. “Doctor Woodard, how may I help you?” he asked coolly.

“Er, Willie Loomis has just been brought in here.”

New, cold fear replaced his confusion. “Willie Loomis? What’s happened?”

“He was in an accident, crashed his truck into a tree near the east edge of town.”

“Oh, dear, I see,” he replied with a swallow, fighting to keep his voice in a tenor of sincere but distant concern. “Is he hurt?”

“A few broken ribs, and we’re testing him for a concussion. Looking at the state of his truck, it’s a miracle he got off as easy as he did.”

“Oh. Oh, I see,” Barnabas repeated. “But he’s going to be alright, isn’t he?” he asked, wavering a little more than he would’ve liked, but surely not enough for the doctor to register.

“Well, he’s lost a lot of blood, but we think he’ll be alright. I’ve treated Willie before. He’s a fast healer.”

Barnabas nodded, the roiling panic in his head settling down to a simmer of worry. Willie’s enhanced healing factor was Barnabas’s doing, to keep him from bleeding out when Barnabas drew his blood. Good. Good. He’d be fine, then. He realized that Woodard hadn’t seen him nodding and hastily replied, “Good, very good. How did this accident happen?”

He could hear the doctor hesitate. “We ran some tests when we brought Willie in and it appeared that he was... under the influence, prior to the crash,” he admitted at length.

Barnabas’s mouth went dry. “Under the infl-?” he echoed. “But…” Words did not come easily. Woodard’s statement hadn’t made any sense. Willie didn’t drink, not anymore, and he wouldn’t have driven drunk. “Willie doesn’t drink,” he repeated out loud, as though explaining this to the doctor would somehow reveal the accident to be a big misunderstanding and undo the whole business. “He never drinks,” he emphasized. “I see to it.”

“Well, clearly that’s not true,” said the doctor. “His blood alcohol level was very high when we picked him up.” Barnabas felt his jaw fall open a little bit. He felt like he’d been slapped. Anger radiated through him, mixing with the fear and confusion. Willie had gotten drunk, gone driving, and then crashed the truck and hurt himself. It didn’t make any sense.

“I-I suppose I’ll have to discuss that with him,” he managed.

“Yeah, I suppose,” agreed Woodard. “Well, you’d better get down here if you want to talk to him tonight. He’s pretty heavily medicated right now, but he’ll be waking up within the hour…”

A question struck Barnabas and he couldn’t help but interrupt. “How did you know to call me here? I only acquired this telephone last week, and I doubt Willie’s made public knowledge of my contact information.”

“Willie told us who to call and where we could get ahold of you,” the doctor explained simply. He didn’t seem to realize just how strange the words seemed to Barnabas. Willie had given Barnabas as an emergency contact? He supposed he didn’t know who else Willie would have requested. Barnabas was simply the person most likely to keep tabs on his location and status, that was all.

“Of course,” replied Barnabas, licking his lips to try and ease the dryness in his mouth. “I’ll be down very shortly.”

“Alright, Mr. Collins. Goodbye.” The doctor hung up and Barnabas lowered the earpiece to the phone with very slightly shaking hands. He stood for a moment, feet held in place by the weight of the situation, shrouded in dread. At length, he shook this feeling off and paced to the door.

-

“I’m here to see Willie Loomis,” Barnabas told the nurse.

She smiled at him and looked down to reference a sheet. “Name?”

“Barnabas Collins,” he answered, less confidently than he usually spoke the name. “Willie is my…” Hell, what had Willie told him to say, upon the revelation that “servant” was considered uncouth in this era? “...my employee.” Yes, that was it.

The nurse flicked a pen wordlessly in the direction of a door to the left of the desk. He nodded to her and walked to the door with measured steps, neither running to it, as some part of him wanted to, nor stubbornly remaining in place, as the other part wanted. He pushed open the door to reveal the sleeping form of Willie Loomis, blood seeping into his arm along a red string to a bag hanging overhead. An unconscious Willie Loomis was hardly a new sight to Barnabas, but the hospital setting made it uncommonly clinical. Willie looked fragile, worn, a little dead. Barnabas darkened the entrance for a long while, loath to wake the man, before he eventually shut the door and intoned, “Willie.”

Willie’s eyes flew open; apart from this, he remained totally still. Whether his silence was due to paralyzing fear, indifference, or medication, Barnabas didn't know or particularly care; he only paced slowly over to Willie’s bedside to glower down at him. “How did this happen,” he said, not pronouncing it as a question.

Willie squinted, coming to a better approximation of consciousness, and shifted upright slightly. “I’on’t know,” he mumbled, looking in Barnabas’s direction but not quite managing to raise his eyes to the vampire’s face. “S’just an accident.”

Perhaps Barnabas wouldn’t get much explanation out of Willie towering over him as he was. Realizing this, he took a seat in the chair adjacent the bed, eye level with Willie. “The doctor tells me you were under the influence when the accident occurred,” he pressed.

Willie had the gall to look down and away from Barnabas without saying a word.

Barnabas’s nostrils flared. “Were you drunk, Willie?”

“I told ya, it was just an accident,” he repeated unhelpfully, still refusing Barnabas’s gaze.

The anger boiling up in Barnabas momentarily outcompeted his confusion and fear, and he thundered, “ _Willie_.” The intensity of his voice actually compelled Willie to look back towards him, face still blank. “Willie, why on _Earth_ were you drinking? I’ve expressly forbidden it,” he asked, more gently. Willie held eye contact with him, looking on edge and strangely moody, but again said nothing. Were the circumstances different, Barnabas would’ve been furious at his ignoring a direct question; as things stood, he could only press on with his line of inquiry. “You could very well have been killed, you know. The doctors tell me your… that one of your ribs could’ve punctured a lung.” Willie showed no signs of caring. “They said you’re lucky to be alive,” he emphasized.

At this, Willie dared to give a dark, hollow laugh, as if he knew something that Barnabas didn't. Barnabas’s face went stormy. Clearly, he didn't consider it all that lucky that he’d survived the accident with minimal injury. Perhaps this was one reason for his recklessness. “Willie, if you deliberately endangered your own life in order to draw attention to your- your- your fragile emotional state-” he spat. He didn't have a proper conclusion to the threat in mind, so he let it sit, open-ended.

Willie held his gaze fearlessly, or at least numbly.

At length, when it became clear that Willie had no intention of acknowledging his accusation, Barnabas stood. “You are well aware that when when your carelessness results in something precious to me being damaged, I am sorely displeased,” he said, hoping his emphasis on well-aware would call to mind occasions upon which Willie had been reminded of that fact. “Do not expect this instance to be an exception,” he concluded.

He could see Willie’s eye twitch as he processed this sentiment. His mouth tightened as though to form the first “p” in a disbelieving echo of “...precious?” but he sagely let the word go. Maybe Barnabas had been a little overly tender. Oh, well - if Willie wanted to press him on the statement later, he could. “Return to Collinwood the moment the hospital sees fit to dismiss you,” he said, washing away the last of the moment of understanding and starting towards the door.

“Uh- B-Barnabas?” Willie called, causing Barnabas to pause and look back over his shoulder. “Th-th-the truck’s totalled, I don’t have any way to drive back,” he explained, wide-eyed.

“Well, I have no car,” said Barnabas, something that Willie was surely already aware of. “I can trouble my cousin Roger to pick you up upon your release,” he offered, injecting enough annoyance into the statement to make it clear that such an imposition would cost Willie at a later date. “Or, if you’re feeling well enough, you can walk.”

Willie hung his head in a manner almost approaching apologetic. “I’ll walk.”

“The truck is entirely ruined then, is it?” Barnabas asked darkly, calling Willie’s attention back to him. In truth, he didn’t care at all about the truck, but whenever possible, he wanted Willie to be under the impression that he was furious, which, judging by his panicked silence, he was. “The costs of replacing it will fall to me, then... as will the costs of your care,” he pointed out. “The price for your recklessness can wait to be addressed until after you’ve healed,” he said with a minute raise of his chin. _Thank you, Barnabas, that’s very considerate of you, Barnabas,_ he thought dryly. It would never even occur, of course, to a man like Willie to appreciate such charity. One of the little modern eccentricities Barnabas had had to adapt to.

“Thank you, Barnabas,” said Willie.

Hm? Perhaps Barnabas had been wrong, then. “For what,” he barked, careful not to let on about his appreciation for Willie’s gratitude.

“Well, for- for coming to check on me.”

_Oh_. “Surveying the damage to my property, nothing more,” he lied smoothly.

“You don’t have to do that, you know. It’s okay that you were worried about me,” said Willie.

Barnabas stood very, very still and felt his face grow hot. Willie was right, of course, but the fact that he had said it aloud was beyond presumptuous. “Worried about you?” he growled.

Willie stuttered a few excuses in a panic, which Barnabas didn’t really listen to. So, they were doing this again, were they? This thing wherein Willie said something incalculably stupid and then, rather than shutting up, continued to talk - as though he were unaware that in order to climb out of a hole, one had first to put down the shovel with which one was digging it.

“You presume a great deal, Willie,” he intoned, once Willie seemed to be done with his rambling. The words “I’m sorry, Barnabas,” which, quite frankly, would have eased many of the unpleasant situations in which Willie found himself but which always seemed to elude the man, did not come. Instead, Willie was contritely silent, a tolerable alternative. “You know, I’m rather surprised that you asked the hospital to call me,” said Barnabas at length in a tone of detached curiosity.

“Surprised?” asked Willie. “W- how come?”

“A smarter man might have seized the opportunity to call someone else and make a desperate attempt to explain his situation within the relative security of the hospital,” he suggested.

Willie sighed quietly. “Yeah, maybe a smarter man woulda,” he grumbled. Barnabas could hear the follow-up that Willie’s words implied, something along the lines of “but I didn’t, so fuck you too, I guess.” But he wisely left those words unspoken, and Barnabas nodded.

“Rest now, Willie,” he commanded. “I expect a speedy recovery.”

Willie nodded. “...yeah, I will.” He rolled over on his side, away from the vampire. He couldn’t possibly be asleep already, of course, but if he were as medicated as Woodard had claimed, then surely it wouldn’t be long. Barnabas turned and paced out of the room without another word, shutting the door most of the way behind him.

Before he latched the door, he hesitated on the other side, and lingered for long enough that the nurse at the desk gave him a questioning look. He briefly considered explaining himself to her before remembering that, being Barnabas Collins, he was under no obligation to. So, after waiting a minute more, he turned and eased the door open again with agonizing slowness. Mercifully, it complied without creaking, and he stepped back into Willie’s room with the silence of a ghost.

Willie, thinking himself to be alone, had indeed fallen asleep. It was a little more like his usual sleeping state than the clinical one Barnabas had found him in earlier: stormy, but calm. Strikingly still, like his very breath hadn’t the heart to disturb him by even the rising of his chest. Barnabas crossed the room slowly and sat down again in the chair beside the bed, careful not to make any noise that might wake the man.

He looked very, very light, and soft.

Willie’s tendency towards self-destruction, especially of late, was baffling. His constant talking back and questioning. His refusal to stop talking when it would only benefit him. His seeming inability to apologize. Perhaps he got some sense of boldness out of displeasing Barnabas, some semblance of being his old self, rather than ever being entirely what Barnabas wanted of him. Barnabas could tolerate that. It was merely a superficial defiance, one that rarely affected his actual work.

But this incident was different. Now Willie had gambled with his life. Barnabas had always been comforted by the fact that for all his self-endangerment, Willie seemed to prefer any condition of life over death. With this latest outburst, that no longer felt like a certainty. In truth, it did worry Barnabas. It worried him a great deal.

He rubbed his hands over his mouth and breathed shallowly. He’d have to leave the room before Willie woke up, of course. But it was late, and as the doctor had said, Willie was heavily medicated, and low on blood. It could be a long time before he woke up, a very long time. Hours.

And Barnabas could be very quiet.

**Author's Note:**

> A little scenario I concocted first just as dialogue and then later actually got the motivation to expand upon. Shout-out to Dark Shadows, which I've just gotten into, for making me actually finish a fanfiction, however short, for the first time in three years. Writing for this pompous jerk brings me so much joy, I can't tell you.


End file.
